Blackwing Lair

Nefarian

Nefarian himself is pretty much like Onyxia but buffed up quite a bit. He comes in three phases with the first phase the absolute hardest. If your guild can kill Chromaggus then it’s a matter of time until Nefarian dies as your guild will gain more and more loot.

Basically Nefarian sits on his throne and comes with three phases. They can be summed up with with Phase 1: Dragon Zerg, Phase 2: Onyxia, Phase 3: AHHHH RISEN CONSTRUCTS AHHHHH.

Set-Up

The entire raid needs to take their armor off (anything with duration, rings and cloaks can stay on) then activate the encounter. The reason for this is to see what types of enemies are going to spawn. From there you need to set-up groups to combat the various types (see the information on Phase One).

From there, it’s simply explaining the raid and giving everyone a fifteen minute break. Nefarian respawns every 15 minutes which is important to know if you wipe.

Pick your main tank and a group of healers to heal him during the transition to phase two. Make sure everyone has their Onyxia Scale Cloaks on.

Phase One

Phase one involves two groups (at the two grates) of dragons spawning at a constant rate until 20 of each type Drakonid (which is at the three minute mark, when Nefarian lands). Your raid should be split up with twenty people on each side and divided into the best possible groups for each type (each Drakonid has a different resistance type).

The following Drakonids can spawn (only two types will spawn, one for each side):

Brood Power Green: Randomly stuns the tank, may need to be double tanked.
Brood Power Red: Red damages for 1300-1500 damage a second, and can stack 5 times.
Brood Power Black: Instant attack for 1000-1500 damage.
Brood Power Blue: AoE Mana Burn and attack debuff of 50%.
Brood Power Bronze: Turns you into a whirlwinder that makes you hurt allies.

Position people like in the diagram and have the Warriors place a sunder on any enemy that spawns while the Rogues follow the main assist for that side and DPS any enemies down. Mages and Warlocks need to AoE enemies when they get into a big enough group. That simple, the rest of it is keeping everyone alive and keeping any of them from leaking to the sides.

Nefarian will be in shadow form randomly shadowbolt volleying certain sides, so be sure Shadow Protection is up.

Whenever Nefarian announces that he’s going to land, quickly have your main tank and the main tank healers (decided before the fight) move into tanking position (see diagram in Phase Two). Finish up all of the dragons then have everyone move up and kill Nefarian. If more then 30 people are alive then, at this point, you are doing really well and have a very good chance of slaying Nefarian. If less then 30 are alive you still have a chance. If less then 20 is alive then it may be a good idea to wipe now and just retry it.

Alternative Strategy

There is an alternative strategy that is used by some guilds for phase one. Instead of splitting their raid at each side, they each bundle up in the middle of the room creating a wall of tanks and melee followed by a gap then the rest of the raid. The enemies are all dragged into one massive AoE pile and dealt with in an extremely quick fashion. The only problem with this strategy is if your colors are wrong (say red and blue) then you probably can’t pull it off and if your melee isn’t skilled at catching enemies as they approach then your raid may be wiped through leaks. It is, however, a technique that many guilds do successfully on a frequent basis.

Phase Two

Nefarian turns into a dragon and lands! This fight is exactly like Onyxia. He does a lot of damage to the main tank, randomly fears, casts Shadow Flame on the main tank (shield him before it’s finished casting), cleave, a tailwhip that does good damage, and a curse that reduces healing effects by a ton (which needs to be removed asap) that’s casted on the main tank.

With that alone, he’s really easy as long as enough people are alive. Then, of course, there are class calls that add that extra bit of difficulty to this (but can be maintained). Every 30 seconds one of the following calls will be made:

Druids – “Druids and your silly shapeshifting. Let's see it in action!”
All Druids are put into cat form. Best course of action is to stay back and wait (while the Mages decurse the MT more often). They can go DPS if enough people (especially healers) are alive.

Hunters - "Hunters and your annoying pea-shooters!"
This one is the least lethal call of all and easily avoided. All Hunters need to unequip their ranged weapon (for those who dislike macros, simple bring a low level grey weapon and put it on your quickbar, switch to it before a class call, then switch back to your main ranged weapon for the class). That’s it!

Mages – "Mages too? You should be more careful when you play with magic..."
Mages randomly polymorph allies so they should either Ice Block (removing the debuff) or run far far away from the raid (out of polymorphs extended range). This call can wipe a raid if people aren’t on the ball.

Priests – "Priests! If you're going to keep healing like that, we might as well make it a little more interesting!"
All healing skills will cause a stackable DoT on the ally, so the best solution is not to cast anything!

Paladin – "Paladins, I've heard you have many lives. Show me."
This hilarious call should be answered with everyone relaxing DPS and wanding Nefarian for mana (Judgement of Wisdom). Wait for it to end and resume DPS.

Rogues – "Rogues? Stop hiding and face me!"
Rogues are teleported and rooted near Nefarian. This can be good or bad, if they are in range of his cleave & shadow flame or tail whip then Nefarian will need to be turned away from the raid so that all of the Rogues don’t die at once!

Shamans – "Shamans, show me what your totems can do!"
Shamans cast a variety of totems that will buff Nefarian and attack the raid. All single target DPS should switch to killing totems (Shamans included). They need to go down as fast as possible. They are also immune to any AoE spell or skill.

Warriors – "Warriors, I know you can hit harder than that! Let's see it!"
All Warriors are stuck in Berserker Stance. Extra heals on your main tank. DPS eases off a little since the Warrior won’t be in Defensive Stance (which gives more aggro generation). As a small note, the Warrior will need to manually return to their preferred stance.

Warlocks – "Warlocks, you shouldn't be playing with magic you don't understand. See what happens?"
2 Infernals per Warlock spawn. All DPS switch to killing Infernals (stack and AoE them down). They are immune to fire damage and have immolate on them. Warlocks need to be away from the raid in order to avoid stunning people as they spawn.

That’s it for Phase 2! At around 21% stop your DPS and wait until a friendly class call comes (Hunter or Paladin) and then DPS him down to 20% where he will start Phase 3.

Phase 3

At twenty percent Phase 3 begins. All of your Mages, Paladins, and Warlocks need to be ready with their AoE’s since all of the dragons killed in Phase 1 come back to life in undead form. Paladins need to BoP different mages and a Warrior should use it’s Intimidating Shout followed by Shield Wall. They have low HP but hit really hard! If you can kill them fast enough (enough concentrated AoE DPS) then this part will be trival. After all of them are dead then it returns back to Phase 2.

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.